This application describes a target launching mechanism for use in a toy pinball game.
Pinball games have been and still currently are very fascinating to a certain segment of the population. Penny arcade or bar-room type pinball games are quite sophisticated in employing both mechanical and electrical components to dazzle and stimulate their operators. Generally, these games are too sophisticated and/or they are located out of the environment of the younger child. The younger child, however, still finds enjoyment in playing these games. To this end, small scale or child-oriented pinball games have been developed.
Normally the child-type pinball game utilizes a plurality of depressions, holes or the like located in a playing surface which the child uses as a target for a plurality of objects, it being the express purpose of the game to locate one object in each hole of the depression. This does not offer the stimulation and/or fascination of the adult-type pinball games which have moving objects, blinking lights, etc.
Attempts have been made to simulate adult-type pinball games on a small scale. Unfortunately all too often this results in a game, which although it is unsophisticated in operation from the user's point of view, is complex enough to require sophisticated manufacturing procedures which ultimately result in a game being priced out of the range of a large segment of its potential users.
Most adult pinball games incorporate flipper mechanisms therein. The majority of these flipper mechanisms are activated by buttons located on the sides of the game. Once the adult has placed his fingers on these buttons he no longer concentrates on them, but instead concentrates on movement of the object across the playing surface. A child, however, does not have the eye-hand coordination necessary to activate these flipper mechanisms at the proper time to successfully have the flipper mechanism engage with an object such as a ball. Because the activation button for the flipper mechanism is disassociated from the flipper, the lack of the proper eye-hand coordination frustrates the child in his inability to successfully time the flipper to engage with the ball.